Weather may delay launch of mission to study deflected asteroid

AFP | Washington                                                  

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Stormy weather has threatened to delay the launch of Europe’s Hera spacecraft, which is scheduled to blast off yesterday, SpaceX has said.

The probe will head off on a mission to inspect the damage a NASA spacecraft did to an asteroid when it smashed into it in 2022 during the first test of Earth’s planetary defences.

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) deliberately crashed into the pyramid-sized asteroid Dimorphos roughly 11 million kilometres (6.8 million miles) from Earth.

The fridge-sized spacecraft successfully knocked the asteroid well off course, demonstrating that humanity may no longer be powerless against potentially planet-killing asteroids that could head our way in the future.

But much about the impact remains unknown, including how much damage was done and exactly what the asteroid was like before it was hit.

So the European Space Agency (ESA) says it is sending Hera to the asteroid to conduct a “crime scene investigation” in the hopes of learning how Earth can best fend off future asteroids.

The spacecraft was scheduled to blast off on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral in the US state of Florida at 10:52 am local time (1452 GMT) yesterday. However thunderstorms have been forecasted in the launch area.

SpaceX said on X on Sunday that the weather is currently only 15 percent favourable for a launch.

If a delay is required, a back-up launch is planned for Tuesday 10:46 am local time, SpaceX said.

The launch window for the mission will remain open until October 27.

The launch had also faced a potential delay due to an anomaly involving a Falcon 9 rocket during the launch of SpaceX’s Crew-9 astronaut mission late last month.

But on Sunday, the US Federal Aviation Administration gave the green light.